Fund for Research and Creativity

2016 Award Recipients

Thank you to all faculty who submitted an application to the Fund for Research and Creativity in this inaugural year. We were pleased to receive numerous requests for funding from across the five schools of CFA. This made for a diverse and competitive pool of applicants. We are delighted to announce that the committee has awarded funding to six proposals.

On behalf of Dean Dan Martin and the members of the review committee, congratulations to all awardees! Upon the completion of their work a public presentation or exhibition will be shared.

​We look forward to the opportunity to support faculty proposals again next year.

Joshua Bard and Richard TurskyTitle: Through Thick and Thin: Recovering the Craft of Architectural Plaster

Through thick and thin proposes the design, fabrication, and installation of a robotically plastered exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hall of Architecture, pending final CMoA approval. The Carnegie Museum curates one of the country’s few remaining collections of cast plaster antiquities and provides a unique venue to exhibit contemporary uses of robotic technology to augment the nearly forgotten craft of applied architectural plaster.

Manson CadenTitle: Opacity

Opacity is a research project and live mediated performance developed around the conceptual framework of the “interface,” specifically the threat of increasing occultation of the interface and the intermediation of algorithms between the real and the experienced. Opacity investigates topics of representation, liberty, control, surveillance, liveness, networks and political resistance.

This proposal intends to create four exemplar functional prototypes of musical instruments that combine an acoustically functional sculptural object, with real-time interactive software running on a mobile phone. Each instrument is based on a distinct mode of gestural interaction: tapping, rubbing, plucking and blowing. All instruments will be low-cost, reproducible by anyone with access to a maker space, and built around the pervasive iOS and Android mobile computing platforms. These prototypes will allow Momeni to secure further funding through crowdsourcing and technology transfer office.

Sarah PickettTitle: The roots of music and sound in Shakespeare: An Interactive Installation

This project will involve research into the early use of sound and music in Shakespeare’s plays during the Elizabethan era. The project will also include a performance/installation component utilizing the First Folio text of Hamlet that will allow the user to interact with the text and sound in a live setting. I hope to bring sound to life in a way that ignites the audience’s imagination and gives a sense of what the experience might have been. In addition to highlighting the historical importance of sound, the project will also show how this translates to contemporary productions.

Reza ValiTitle: The Arghonoon Project

The main objective of the Arghonoon project is to develop a computer-based keyboard instrument with the following capabilities:- Able to produce the sounds of Persian traditional instruments. - Able to produce the sounds of Persian folk instruments.- Precisely employs the Pythagorean tuning system of Persian and Middle Eastern music, with support for alternate tuning systems.- Provide the ability to use existing sound libraries of Western European instruments tuned to Persian/Middle Eastern tuning systems with support for alternate tuning systems.

Angela WashkoTitle: The Game: The Game

The Game: The Game will be an independent video game that dives deeper into the breadth of different seduction communities, looking specifically at the five most well-known pick-up artists to create characters that will attempt to seduce the player using their signature techniques (taken directly from their instructional books). Players will explore the complexity of the construction of social behaviors around dating as well as the experience of being a woman navigating this complicated terrain. The game will be installed in an immersive environment for my solo exhibition at TRANSFER in NYC.